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Fish, Baked in Milk

Fish baked in milk with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish, Baked in Milk

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean and dry the fish.

  2. Lay the fish in a buttered baking dish.

Bake

  1. Pour enough milk over the fish to moisten it.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Cover the dish with a sheet of buttered paper.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until done.

  5. Add more milk after a few minutes to create a sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Whiting + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Whiting + milktop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together123 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fillets of sole, plaice, cod, halibut, brill, whiting, or small fresh haddock
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently in the milk until flaky and tender.
Milk
Keeps the fish moist during baking and, with added milk, forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Add more milk after a few minutes to create a sauce.. Milk that is added later and heated gently thickens only slightly, so it stays smooth rather than curdling or drying out. Adding it too early or boiling it can make the sauce separate or scorch, while adding it at the right point helps it blend with the cooking juices.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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